Being a travel weary waeguken ambling down a garbage-ridden alleyway in Asia. Along my side the street rat found two months ago now resembling a dog after being fed, loved, and domesticated.
With a head read far into romantic notions I set out on foot into the hills behind the monotonous living towers and age addled tin roofs. Through the alleyways was the preferred route, where you can find, at this hour, families cleaning their plates and taking out trash.
I whispered self-administered prayers and thought thoughts of which I hoped to remember. Up there the small mountain waited in darkness, surrounded by the small city of Jinju, singing the cricket saw songs and beating a twig snap drum.
Upon the paved path, past the pagoda with giant Turtle and Lion sculptures I found a new way; A farmer’s path that I never tried even in daylight, but now, with darkness securing the people into their homes the Farmer’s path was safe and seductive.
For the first time I let my street dog off it’s leash and whispered, “I trust you” into its curious ear. He led the way and dragged behind, being best sentient through his snout, and followed me by little birdcalls and a rattle of a bell. I coaxed him up the farmer’s path, which he did not trust. I lowered myself and invited him into the wooded darkness.
Up the path there opened a series of routes. I took any old one that seemed just as good and unknown as the others. All I wanted was a clearing to stop and sit at. Only minutes of hunching under pines that fingered and pinched my back I found just a spot.
Sitting consciously practicing unconsciousness, remaining thoughtful. Of the friend who left, of the forlorn sky that needed to be without city, of the peace of mind that came with the wind.
Of the friend who left, after first meeting at a bull fight, telling me of detailed travel plans, another year out into the wonderland of beating it, and just a month ago, at his going away party in an old shared apartment merry with beer and bitter-sweet, after twisting his knee in the beach sands of the Boryeong Mud Festival, he hobbled about the party telling me of returning to Canada to get surgery and to settle down. “It’s time to get myself better, settle down, get a job and a wife.” Said He. And those were the saddest words I’ve heard him say, he was practicing optimism, and sincerely looking forward to home. The beer helped and I agreed that he should get the surgery and fix his body. It seemed a white flag was waved behind his shoulders by uttering the words “settle down.” It was, I thought sad, but he seemed happy so who was I and what do I know?
Another character entered my mind; all his ramblings, philosophies, humor and pretentiousness. Sitting at a street table drinking beer amid a country town carnival he commented on the old men who sold corn on the cob and other trinkets from their junk carts. Effortlessly they scowled without reason. They looked mean and distrustful. He mused; “You spend your entire life frowning, you grow old, the wrinkles wrap your face and cast you into sadness. The bitter years take you hostage. Suppose the same thing happens if you smile all your life. You die with a smile on your face, and your still a hostage.” I guess the point, if there ever was one, was to keep changing direction, as was the ways of people you met far from home, but he never said anything else about it, and was already talking about his superiority over his parent’s logic of thought.
I was thinking too much so I stopped. I repeated to myself “good dog...good dog.” In order to quell my most prevalent distraction, which was the loose dog somewhere near by, “I trust you” I convinced my self and wandered into my mind, muttering “good dog.”
I found a trance method in making little city lights disappear behind thin branches of the nearby brush. I found one red one, that I knew was a transmission tower on the mountain across the river. I steadied my head and tried to make it disappear for as long as possible. Focusing on my breathing and the wind I was quite successful; there was no red light, only the conifer branch and my thoughts. My thoughts didn’t even exist, only my eyes were open to the branches that now hardly existed as they once did, as they transformed in the void. And finally the thinking stopped.
After all this, I noticed that my dog had quite disappeared as well. I stood up, whistled and hooted his two-syllable identity. Nothing. Ten minutes of this and I grew quite panicked.
“Good Dog, My Ass.” I thought. I perched at each corner of the area calling his name and whistling, but only the crickets and leaves, and one distant dog barking, But not his, and way too far off. I traversed off the farmer’s path and back onto the main walk. I followed it further up the mountain continuing my calls and worrying. I could hear the sadness and anger in my girlfriends voice, “How could you trust a street dog?” when I thought about returning home with the empty leash. Already, quite faithless and pitiful I started making plans for life without the dog that we had briefly loved, realizing that being a tramp was it’s fortune.
Not another five minutes up into the darkness I saw his small black figure peeing under a tree and waddling towards me all tongue and smiles. I almost fell to the ground before him as the weight suddenly lifted away. So quickly had all of our fates changed, I was lightheaded with joy. “Good Dog, Good Dog!”
